Westminster Hall is one of the largest rooms in Europe, being two hundred and twenty-eight feet in length, fifty-six feet broad, and ninety feet high. The walls are of stone, the windows of the Gothic form, the floor stone, and the roof of timber covered with lead; and having not one pillar in it, is supported by buttresses. It is usually observed that there are no cobwebs ever seen in this hall, and the reason given for this is, that the timber of which the roof is composed is Irish oak, in which spiders will not harbour; but I am inclined to believe that this is a fact not to be depended on, for I find the timber for rebuilding and repairing the Palace of Westminster in the reign of Richard III. was brought from the forests in Essex; and as there is no colour from history to surmise that the timber of this hall was Irish oak, so is there no imaginable reason why timber should be fetched from another kingdom for the repair of the hall, when the counties of Middlesex and Essex were great part of them forest, and afforded timber enough to have built twenty such places; and we find that the timber of the Essex forests was in fact applied to the repairs of this palace; for it cannot be pretended that the present roof is the same that was erected by William Rufus when it was first built, it appearing that Richard II., about the year 1397, caused the old roof to be taken down and a new one made (as has been observed already) and this is probably the same we now see. Here are hung up as trophies, 138 colours, and 34 standards, taken from the French and Bavarians at Hochstadt, anno 1704. The House of Lords, or chamber where the peers assemble in Parliament, is situated between the Old Palace Yard and the Thames. It is a spacious room, of an oblong form, at the south end whereof is the King’s throne, to which he ascends by several steps: on the right hand of the throne is a seat for the Prince of Wales, and on the left another for the princes of the blood, and behind the throne the seats of the peers under age. On the east side of the house, to the right of the throne, sit the archbishops and bishops; on the opposite side of the house sit the dukes, marquises, earls, and viscounts; and on forms crossing the area, the barons under the degree of viscounts.